System and methods for semiautomatic generation and tuning of natural language interaction applications

1. A system for supervised automatic code generation and tuning for natural language interaction applications, the system comprising: a solution data repository component operating on a server computer and comprising a plurality of hierarchical ontological domain models and a plurality of hierarchical language models comprising a preconfigured, hierarchical arrangement of language objects, a plurality of language recognition rules expressed in terms of elements of the plurality of hierarchical language models; a build environment comprising a plurality of software modules stored or operating on a computer, the plurality of software modules comprising a developer user interface, a plurality of automatic text analysis tools, a plurality of automated coding tools, a plurality of automated testing and tuning tools, and a plurality of automated optimization tools; and an analytics framework software module operating on a server computer and adapted to receive and analyze a plurality of log files of natural language interaction sessions and a plurality of text corpora; wherein a plurality of text samples is assigned to a plurality of input groups based on semantic content, each input group comprising a plurality of semantically related inputs, where the assignment of the plurality of text samples into input groups is performed either with automatic clustering or manually; wherein for each of the plurality of input groups a plurality of language recognition rules, a plurality of language objects and a plurality of flow elements are automatically generated by the plurality of the automatic coding tools; wherein the plurality of automated testing tools carries out automated testing of the plurality of language recognition rules and generates a plurality of recommendations for tuning or correcting language recognition rules; wherein the analytics framework software module performs analysis of a plurality of log files of natural language interaction sessions between a plurality of users and a candidate natural language interaction application in order to identify problems in the candidate natural language interaction application; and wherein a plurality of optimizations to the candidate natural language interaction application is carried out by the optimization tools and an optimized natural language interaction application is deployed into production and stored in the solution data repository.

2. A method for supervised automatic code generation and tuning for natural language interaction applications, the method comprising the steps of: (a) importing, using an analytics framework software module operating on a server computer, a plurality of text samples into a build environment comprising a plurality of software modules stored or operating on a computer, the plurality of software modules comprising a developer user interface, a plurality of automated coding tools, a plurality of automated testing tools, and a plurality of automated optimization tools; (b) automatically assigning, using the analytics framework software module, a plurality of text samples to a plurality of input groups based on semantic content of the plurality of text samples, wherein the assignment is performed using automated clustering; (c) automatically generating, using at least one of the plurality of automated coding tools, a plurality of language recognition rules, a plurality of language objects and a plurality of flow elements for each of the plurality of input groups; (d) performing, using at least one of the plurality of automated testing tools, automated testing of language recognition rules generated in step (c); (e) automatically generating, using at least one of the plurality of automated optimization tools, based on results obtained in step (d), a plurality of recommendations for tuning or correcting language recognition rules; (f) providing the plurality of recommendations to a developer via the developer user interface; (g) deploying, using the plurality of optimization tools, a candidate natural language interaction application to a plurality of users; (h) delivering log files of natural language interaction sessions of the plurality of users to an analytics framework software module operating on a server computer for analysis; (i) performing analysis, using the analytics framework software module, of the log files to identify problems in the candidate natural language interaction application; (j) carrying out, using the plurality of optimization tools, a plurality of optimizations to the candidate natural language interaction application; and (k) deploying, using the plurality of optimization tools, an optimized natural language interaction application into production.